 Something's bugging me It's this I've got this boat here, right? Oh, look at that thing. That's beautiful boat. I've recently upgraded it to be super amazing and You know what I did was for anyone who missed it stuck a nice battery up in the front here it's you know made by those guys and And 24 volts 100 amp hours beautiful, and I got a nice charge controller in here that's charging the battery and that power is a motor that's back here and I Tested this the other day It was fast like pretty fast and I've got pedal power on this boat Up here pedals and this big gear Well, you can't really see the gear part Got your parts turns another gear down there Which turns a shaft that goes all the way down there back and out the bottom here, right? So this is the pedal power propeller and then back there is the motor power propeller and Let's take a quick peek at the motor Real quick. There's a motor in there Very nice very nice. It's got a shaft that goes down through there out to the back Okay, so what's the problem here? The problem is this boat goes fast enough on the motor now that I don't think the pedal power Can even Go fast enough To keep up with what's going on like I think even if I'm pedaling pretty hard. It's causing more drag than propulsion and This battery that I've got up in the front here is It's got 2,560 watt hours of energy in it Which means I can drive this boat full speed for like two and a half hours Which means I can basically drive on the battery power like anywhere I go any time Plus I've got the solar panels up here, you know charging the battery and doing the motor and everything So like I can basically drive this thing all the time on battery power and if I'm if I'm going as fast As I do on battery power I think the pedals the whole pedal situation is just slowing things down I really like having the pedal power because I like having something to do I like having exercise but I Don't want it to be there Slowing me down that seems kind of silly to you know Have something that's actually slowing down the boat just so I can get some exercise You can just do do some other things to get exercise. So And I've been thinking about this for a while I think I'm gonna take off This propeller down here, and I was thinking about it the other day I'm pretty sure that if I Well, I'm gonna have to be Cut it very carefully To get it off without you know damaging the hull itself But I'm pretty sure I can handle that if I cut it off right. I'm pretty sure I can reattach it Fairly easily By having a pipe that goes inside that part and inside that part because there's enough space There's a bearing down here like a roller bearing as long as I keep the connector pipe above that I'll still be able to reconnect it later, and then I Could do the same thing up here. I can cut this Take this whole thing off And to reattach it in the future I can have a pipe that goes up inside here and in there and Make it so it's reconnectable and then the pedals I can all this all just comes off from bolts But then the the post I can do the same thing cut it down near the bottom And I'll just leave a little stump there, but make it so I could reconnect and I don't think I would read need to reconnect it Anytime soon because this this battery supposed to last a really long time But that was the only thing really Preventing me from taking the pedal power out Was that I was thinking if I take it out. That's it. It's out but Yeah, I'm pretty sure I could take it out and put it back in You know While I'm on the topic of things to possibly do to this boat There's another thing I've been thinking about doing and this this is not an immediate thing and this is just I don't know We'll see where this goes, but I Could put hydrofoils on this boat now I wouldn't be able to lift the boat completely out of the water with hydrofoils because You know the motor propeller is right back there. That would still have to be in the water But I could lift the boat up to the point where there's just a little bit of boat in the water. I Could get the both pontoons totally up and just have a little yeah Just like a little streak of boat in the water It would way way reduce the amount of boat, you know being dragged through the water So I might think about doing something like that Although first let me get this propeller off. I also Could definitely do with getting the rest of these little little barnacles off I still have a little bit on there bit of stuff. It's not too bad Oh, I'm actually doing it. I'm actually doing it. All right, let's just do it These are the rollers in the roller bearing at the back You know, it's like they're all in great shape Good stuff. All right, everything detached down there Everything detached up here Oh, yeah, all the way down to the bottom I'm thinking I can cut that right about there Cut this down toward the bottom somewhere But before I do those I want to take care of this So I'm thinking I get an angle grinder and just very carefully Cut it and then do the same thing on the other side And then I'll probably have to do a little bit of touch ups All right, I just need to make sure I don't I don't get into the boat because like all right I have to cut through into the pipe Into the pipe cavity not into the boat cavity because then the boat will sink, you know Oh, it looks so naked Missing that whole propeller area So while I was cutting that piece off and grinding it nice and smooth I realized I'm never putting this pedal thing back in If I want to put a pedal thing back in I'm going to make a paddle wheel Because then I don't have to worry about the propeller sticking out the bottom and you know, that's that's always a thing I'm worried about hitting on reefs or if I pull the boat up on a beach now. I can pull the boat up on a beach No problem that that rear propeller that won't hit if I'm pulled up on a beach so Yeah, I don't think I'm going to want to put the same thing back in So I just shoved a bunch of spray foam right in there right up in there Filled it all with spray foam the hole, you know from the from the thing here that goes down And then put a piece a sheet of plastic Under it and then have this Piece of sheet metal fold it in half and stuck that up there And prop the brick under it just to hold it in place. So hopefully that'll get the spray foam to conform to the shape pretty well And then I think after The spray foam is cured I can you know sand around the area on this side and the other side And then put a couple sheets of fiberglass in there and just just fiberglass and all over Smooth it real nice and smooth and just just make it a permanent thing and then With these guys, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna cut them right off and not worry about it Yeah, I'm liking this and my secondary Power source will be this here excellent paddle. That's a pretty good paddle. I made it like five or six years ago still in good shape Oh and before I put the the sheet of plastic under the spray foam I did wax the sheet of plastic I'm not sure if it even needs it if it would stick to spray foam or not But if it's waxed it should come off pretty easily All right, let's see how we did yesterday. That's pretty good Nice a bit off the front there to smooth it out And go over this whole area with a bit of fiberglass maybe just Up to here Pretty good. All right Not bad on this side too I'll at least need some trimming But I have to sand all the way around it anyway So the new fiberglass will stick And luckily I have some polyester resin for the fiberglass Left over from I don't know what All right angle grinder with a flap wheel Some sandpaper a file a knife between all this stuff. I should be able to get that Nice and smooth and streamlined. What am I looking right there? Yeah Oh, this side was pretty easy to do Like 30 seconds with the angle grinder to the sanding I do want to make sure I rough this up really good so the fiberglass sticks So I want to be driving fast and water gets up under the fiberglass pops the whole thing off I'm also not 100% sure This foam won't dissolve in the polyester resin But it's Oh, no, I need to test it I was thinking it would be fine, but now I'm realizing It might not be I need to look with the material Okay, I've got internet confirmation That that resin the resin I'm using polyester resin will not dissolve this spray foam stuff And I've also got a little piece left over from yesterday. I put a bit of resin right on there Seems to not be dissolving in okay Double confirmation. I think I'm good All right. The other side was pretty quick too Man, that looks amazing If I can get it this smooth after I get the fiberglass on it, I would be psyched Okay fiberglass Not very much just as a little area here It's going to go down this side and up the other side. That's going to be a little bit tricky Without someone on the other side because I'm going to have to get it stuck on one side And the other Maybe I can reach up under and kind of stick it Yeah, I'll figure it out. All right. I want two pieces of fiberglass One to go right there. Okay, that's man one So at the top of that cover Looks about right Yeah There's a big piece of waxed paper and some duct tape just in case after I get the fiberglass on it's like starting to fall off And I need to like put something there. I don't know how this is going to go Okay, I got a roller. I don't wouldn't normally I wouldn't normally use a roller on something this small But this has to be pretty exact. This is an important thing. I need to get this As good as possible All right, I guess I better go get my resin Mix them up See how it goes There's my well partial gallon of resin Put some in this old pan that I've been using for this And I've put some paint tint in it a little more So I often tint my Fiberglass like none of this black stuff is painted. That's all got tint mixed in with the fiberglass Man that went on really nice I even got it up the other side. No problem All right second piece I almost want to let this one Cure first Let's just get the second one on so that the fibers can all mix together and everything Pull slightly risky getting the camera out while I'm doing this But it's going so well I think that'll stay long enough that I can just go to the other side and Pull that up. I don't want to do it from this side I'll smoosh out these Feather it out a bit So I don't want like a hard edge along here Where it could separate like that would be the spot it would separate kind of want some stringy fibers And then this is all going to be sanded smooth anyway. I just want to kind of give it a uh Not clearly defined edge So the universe has more difficulty figuring out how to peel it off Okay, well that went amazingly well Now I just need to let this harden Run over it with sandpaper a little just to knock off any little Little fibers that are sticking out and roll over it with some more resin Thick enough layer that I can smooth that layer Uh sand that layer smooth And not get down to the 50s and then I'm good Well, this is great. Okay. Now. I'm kind of getting excited about not having that propeller down there Sure, I don't have pedal power man. It's going to be so much easier to get this boat in and out of the water Because I was always so concerned about you know, there's this propeller sticking out down here You know when I'm putting the boat in the we kind of make sure it doesn't hit the bottom Oh, I don't have to worry about that at all. I could pull this up on a beach. Oh, this is great Oh, this is gonna take hours to cure so Well, that's going on I think I'll take this stuff off this and that I'm just gonna do with the hacksaw You know when I used to get resin in town It was always a race to use it before it hardened But uh, I guess in the last year or so They're getting slow cure hardened or slow Slow cure resin So it takes a lot longer to to harden now I kind of wish I had some of the the fast cure stuff and I did put the upper limit of how much hardener I can put in so That's all I can really do. All right Well, that's hardening. Let's do this simple Catch all that dust Itchy dust I want a bunch of dust going down there Oh, there's the spray foam. Haha. That's right there. So I put spray foam in from the bottom I guess I got all the way up to here too, but it didn't make it a little further Maybe I can put a bit in up from Maybe I can put a bit in from up here just to fill in fill in the rest All right. Now this guy Since I'm permanently taking these pedals out They decided I'm not going to put this back in ever I want to cut this as close to flush with the floor as possible, which is why I got the hacksaw hoping They can kind of get it like Right in there, but I'm gonna have to be careful not to you know cut the hole, of course Oh, it's pretty good Maybe I'll get an angle grinder and get a little bit more out of there I don't know. I think it's fine. It's so spacious. I don't know how to have in order to put my feet I used to always put them on the pedals Maybe I should put a little flat thing down here or Eh, whatever Oh, yeah, that's totally fine Ah, that's pretty good too. Oh, that's that's actually really good. Oh, that's that's totally how I'm driving That's actually how I would drive when I got tired of pedaling. Anyway That's pretty comfortable And with this all this space here I can put like a kid back here. Maybe I'll put an extra chair You know, we're just uh, yeah, the chairs are just these wood things Um, maybe I'll just put cargo here Oh, it's nice having this extra space sweetness All right charge controller looks like it's still doing all the right stuff. That's good All right, come on. How how long are you gonna take this? Oh Yeah, waiting for resin to cure It's like worse than waiting for paint to dry Oh, the paint dries kind of fast. There's resin Hours it's gonna be hours